(March 13, 2013, NEW YORK) – Today, Reed Smith LLP formally launched its Complex Litigation Strategy (CLS) Group, which provides comprehensive solutions for clients facing major exposure and “bet the company” viral litigations.

The 75-attorney group, which is led by New York-based partner John Hooper, already has a long track record of advising major multinationals through some of the largest, most complex class actions, commercial litigations and mass torts before federal and state courts in the United States.

For example, the CLS group recently served as co-strategic counsel to a global automobile manufacturer in negotiating one of the largest automotive industry class action settlements in history, valued at over $1 billion. The group is also currently acting as national coordinating counsel in a variety of litigations including toxic torts, mass torts, consumer protection class actions and a variety of threatening litigations facing the pharmaceutical, medical device, banking, finance, insurance automotive consumer products as well as manufacturing industries.

In addition to providing sophisticated litigation management services, a deep bench of trial lawyers that take these cases to trial, and appellate lawyers with hundreds of reported decisions, the CLS Group offers innovative resolution and settlement strategies, which provide endgame solutions that are currently in high demand. According to research by BTI, corporate counsel commitment to getting litigation “off the books” has skyrocketed since 2008, resulting in a 19.4 percent jump in resolution rates in just the last three years.

“We begin every engagement by partnering with our clients to design the most effective clearly defined exit strategies that are pragmatic, realistic and can be successfully executed,” explains Hooper. “Sometimes those options are obvious and can be achieved quickly, while other times, given the nature of the risk and complexity of the litigation, the strategy may be a multi-year plan requiring careful coordination of the client’s trial, appellate and resolution options.”

“Given the tremendous threat that these litigations can pose, a successful strategy involves much more than achieving a favorable result in the court room, it also requires firms and their clients to carefully manage how the crisis impacts a client’s brand and its ability to compete in the global marketplace,” adds Hooper.

Reducing the financial impact of defending complex litigation is also a core focus for the CLS Group. To meet the expectations that forecasting creates, Reed Smith utilizes a focused case management system that provides its clients with weekly or monthly reporting on substantive accomplishments and challenges, and which carefully tracks corresponding legal spending and provides real-time budget forecasts. Reed Smith also believes that these cases are good candidates for a variety of alternative fee arrangements (AFA), which the firm already utilizes in more than 20 percent of its litigation work.

“We understand that the costs of defending major litigation can, at times, be just as threatening as the litigation itself,” says Hooper. “We give our in-house partners the transparency they need, and which their finance colleagues demand.”

Helping to mitigate costs and enable the CLS Group to meet these financial and case management objectives, is Reed Smith’s in-house Records & E-Discovery (RED) Team, which, with 100 full-time lawyers, is one of the largest in-house e-discovery practices in the Am Law 100.

Recent high-profile situations that Reed Smith’s CLS Group has handled include: 

• The successful defense of one of the 10 largest U.S. banks against residential mortgage lending discrimination claims valued upwards of $2 billion, while scoring a precedent-setting ruling that has since been cited in numerous class actions.
• Defending the nation’s leading online source for competitive home loan offers against eight putative national class actions, consolidated in an MDL, seeking to impose billions of dollars in statutory liability under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, following an alleged breach of customer data.
• Defending one of the nation’s leading mortgage lenders, against 40 putative class actions, exceeding 17 million individuals, arising from the alleged theft and resale of mortgage-related consumer information.
• Defending a global medical device manufacturer in the first bellwether cases in a federal MDL. As National Coordinating and Trial Counsel, the group also negotiated several settlement agreements, encompassing nearly 100 firms and thousands of cases, and effectively resolved more than two-thirds of the pending lawsuits.
• Negotiating a novel class action settlement in federal district court on behalf of a global sports and lifestyle brand, and ultimately resolving five putative class actions filed in state and federal courts alleging false and deceptive advertising practices, as well as managing and resolving copycat class actions in the Canadian Provinces of Ontario and Quebec.

Today, Reed Smith’s CLS Group also launched a new website—for more information, visit: http://www.reedsmith.com/Complex-Litigation-Strategy/.

About Reed Smith

Reed Smith is a global relationship law firm with more than 1,700 lawyers in 25 offices throughout the United States, Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Founded in 1877, the firm represents leading international businesses, from Fortune 100 corporations to mid-market and emerging enterprises. Its lawyers provide litigation and other dispute resolution services in multi-jurisdictional and other high-stakes matters; deliver regulatory counsel; and execute the full range of strategic domestic and cross-border transactions. Reed Smith is a preeminent advisor to industries including financial services, life sciences, health care, advertising, technology and media, shipping, energy and natural resources, real estate, manufacturing, and education. For more information, visit reedsmith.com.

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